Air Force should make active-reserve switches easier, Wilson says

“One of the things I do think we need to think about ... is making it easier to come and go from the service ... so it’s more part time and full time,” Wilson said during a forum at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

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When the United States fought the Gulf War in 1991, Wilson said, the Air Force had 134 fighter squadrons. Today, that number has plunged to 56, even though the demand for air power hasn’t declined.

Sequestration alone cost the Air Force 10 squadrons and 30,000 people, she said, even though demand for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance sharply increased.

“That’s a huge change that the Air Force was put through as a result of sequester, and a significant drop in the Air Force budget,” Wilson said. “I think that sequester has done more to damage the Air Force than anything our adversaries have done” in recent years.

New guidance from the U.S. Air Force hits pause on public affairs while the entire enterprise is retrained — and could have a long-term impact on how the service shares information.

Valerie Insinna, David B. Larter, Aaron Mehta

March 12, 2018

The public’s right to know

Wilson defended the Air Force’s controversial decision to limit the amount of information released to the public, saying it was necessary for operational security.

“We try to be very open with the American people about what we’re doing and why,” Wilson said. “But we also have to understand that our adversaries are also reading the public press, and we don’t want to tell them things which could compromise an operation, or compromise our ability to conduct future operations.”

She also said the military’s erroneous statements that the extended range version of the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile had been used in last week’s Syria strike, and that F-22 Raptors had not been involved, should not be held against officials.

“I think maybe we should cut people a little bit of slack,” Wilson said. “They are trying to get information out about an operation that happened the night before, on a Saturday morning, and taking questions from 100 different directions about operational details. I think they did a pretty good job. And if you get something wrong on a question, like the version of a particular missile or those kind of things, they just correct the record. It’s not that big a deal.”

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